FlipChip!

FlipChip! combines the blazing fast pace of a game without turns, with a healthy dose of dexterous insanity. Roll dice as fast as you can, activate card abilities, and, oh yeah, flick poker chips at each other.

A Gust of Wind is a classic-style, ascending, trick-based card game. With a goofy sailing theme and a speed element to enhance the tension, A Gust of Wind is a fun take on the classic card game.

Welcome

Jester Stadium invents and designs board games, from light family games to heavier strategy games. After extensive play testing, the games that make the cut are advanced to the next stage - pitching to publishers!

The process

KaPOW!, now known as Rumble Pie, is the first game design that I successfully licensed. I wanted to create a game that could be played in 15 minutes, for a lot of players, and was loud and high energy, yet still required some strategy. From that initial concept came the brainstorming of different play systems that could meet all those demands while still fitting the component/cost constraints of a family game. Testing of the game system was next, resulting in a couple big changes and a bunch of smaller ones until the system worked smoothly. Then followed the hours and hours of testing and tweaking to balance out the player decks until I could finally call the game done. However, to an independent game designer, "done" is only the first step. I made several drafts of prototype artwork, printed a number of copies through The Game Crafter, a POD service, and spent many months emailing and meeting with publishers to pitch the game.

While Rumble Pie is on the simpler end of my game ideas, I follow the same general process for all my designs. A game begins with an idea, which translates into a goal, and with lots of work and a willingness to experiment, the game hopefully (but not always) results in lots of fun, laughter, and happy gamers.